Curbing Copying

Students in Sociology 189, “Law and Social Movements,” might be checking over their papers a little more carefully than usual this year. That is, if they don’t want any academic misdemeanors to be detected by TurnItIn.com, a sophisticated online service designed to sniff out plagiarism. Harvard’s Instructional Computing Group is this year implementing a pilot scheme of the service. The possibility of a more expansive roll out looms, potentially giving way to a time when every student’s work would be subject to a thorough honesty test run by a computer.

It is hardly surprising that the College is taking steps to improve cheating detection, given the results of a study conducted last year by the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University, in which almost 40 percent of undergraduates admitted to committing “cut and paste” plagiarism from the Internet at some point during their college career. TurnItIn.com is already used extensively by high schools and works by comparing submitted material to a vast database culled from the Internet, previously submitted student work, and periodicals and journals, to determine if the author has cheated.

If the program works well, it is a long-needed remedy to the current luck-of-the-draw system in which getting caught for or accused of plagiarism depends largely on the reading breadth and vigilance of a Teaching Fellow (TF); even a single TF can apply different standards amongst his or her students. While some have argued that the use of TurnItIn.com will erode trust between students and their instructors, if the system is implemented across the College, a newfound consistency will breed trust, not undermine it. The implementation of a standard system by which all students put their work through the same rigorous test is both fairer and more likely to catch copycats than the current reliance on teaching staff.

We are also hopeful that the use of TurnItIn.com might expedite what can be a needlessly long arbitration period for students accused of plagiarism. Many cases stretch over the course of several weeks as the Administrative Board mulls its decision. These very stressful proceedings for accused students, who often are ultimately cleared of charges, can be ameliorated as TurnItIn.com helps automate the process of comparing texts.

To be sure, Harvard should not rush into anything with so much at stake. The academic reputation of every student at this College stands to be potentially determined, at the first level at least, by a computer. The administration has a duty both to ensure that the program works well for more sophisticated college level work and to employ its use with a fair degree of skepticism; even computer programs can make mistakes and standardization should not lead to blind trust. Every case should in the end be held to the scrutiny of human judgment.

Overall, however, we welcome the College’s attempt to modernize this system, which will hopefully discourage plagiarism and begin to a curb a disturbing trend in American higher education. Intellectual theft is a serious breach of trust that shows deplorable contempt for the opportunities and advantages offered by a good education. Used sensibly, TurnItIn.com could persuade students—even if their own consciences can’t—that plagiarism is a bad idea.